Electronic documents typically include semantic information that would be helpful if the information was recognized as such. Recognition and use of this semantic information could result in increased interoperability between desktop software applications and other desktop applications and/or web-based applications. Recognition of this semantic information may also provide benefits in electronic commerce.
Electronic commerce is increasing in popularity as users become accustomed to transacting business over the Internet. A fundamental way for a retailer to generate traffic to its website is via a hyperlink. Although hyperlinks are useful, they do have some drawbacks. One drawback of hyperlinks is that they are static. In other words, a hyperlink navigates a user's web browser to a single webpage without regard for the user's interests. The user is expected to decide to which webpage to navigate to and it is a one-to-one navigation. Moreover, hyperlinks are typically not automatically applied to document content (although some programs do recognize them as hyperlinks after they are entered by a user).
Thus, there is a need for a dynamic e-commerce tool that may be automatically applied to documents that a user creates, receives or views.